LITTLE ROCK (AP) — An attorney for a state senator and a group of east Arkansas residents filed a notice of appeal Wednesday over a federal court's decision upholding the way the lawmaker's district was redrawn, but said his clients still were mulling whether to take their challenge to the nation's highest court.

Attorney James Valley filed a notice that his clients intended to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a three-judge panel's ruling that the state Board of Apportionment did not intentionally dilute the black vote in state Sen. Jack Crumbly's district. Crumbly and a group of residents in his district accused the board of intentionally lowering the black voting age population when it redrew the boundaries last year.

Crumbly is black and lost the Democratic primary in May to state Rep. Keith Ingram, who is white.

Valley said he still was checking with his clients about whether they wanted to move forward with the appeal, but wanted to file the notice by Wednesday's deadline to give them that option.

"Our biggest hurdle at this point is money," Valley said.

The maps for Arkansas' 100 House and 35 Senate seats are drawn by the Board of Apportionment. The board is made up of Gov. Mike Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and Secretary of State Mark Martin. The legislative maps were approved on a 2-1 vote last year. McDaniel and Beebe, both Democrats, voted for the plan. Martin, a Republican, opposed it and has argued he shouldn't be held responsible for the map because of that opposition.

Cindy Murphy, a spokeswoman for McDaniel's office, said the attorney general expected to "vigorously" defend the court's decision on appeal.

The judges said in their Sept. 17 ruling that evidence showed the decrease in black voting age population likely was an unintended consequence of the Democrats' political concerns, not racial animus.